


The First

by eerian_sadow



Series: Sparkeaters and Other Walking Dead [1]
Category: Transformers (Bay Movies), Transformers - All Media Types
Genre: Community: spook_me, Gen, Meta, Worldbuilding, challenge: spook me, energy vampires, soul vore, spark eater, zombie robots
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-26
Updated: 2012-10-26
Packaged: 2017-11-17 02:25:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,631
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/546613
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eerian_sadow/pseuds/eerian_sadow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kup remembers the first Spark Eater.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The First

**Author's Note:**

> written for the 2012 round of Spook Me. Happy Halloween, everyone!
> 
> my photo prompts are here: http://i879.photobucket.com/albums/ab353/spook_me/Spook_me%20Fairie%20Tales/AndrewLPaciorek3.jpg
> 
> and here: http://i879.photobucket.com/albums/ab353/spook_me/Spook_me%20Fairie%20Tales/03.jpg

_Somewhere In The Crystal Towers, Present Day_

The Autobots clustered in the common room waiting for the all clear to go out. The older mechs rested quietly, taking care of minor personal or weapon maintenance or taking advantage of the time for recharge. The younger mechs fidgeted, uncomfortable in the crowded space or bored.

“Kup,” One of the older mechs said, irritated after being elbowed by a restless companion too many times, “Tell us a story to pass the time.”

“Yeah!” A younger mech agreed. “Tell us about the Quintesson campaigns!”

“Or the revolution in Tarn!” A third chimed in.

“You sure, lads?” Kup asked, looking up from his rifle. “I thought you were tired of all those.”

“ _Any_ thing is better than just sitting in here waiting,” the second mech said. “Even a story we’ve heard so often we can repeat it.”

“Well, let me think.” The ancient mech cocked his head to one side, considering his options. “How about...”

“Tell them,” Jazz interrupted from the bunker doorway, “About the Lord Protector to Adamantine Prime.”

“The Spark Eater?” Another of the old mechs asked, disbelievingly. “Jazz, that’s a hatchling story. Something for scaring the littles into behaving.”

“Not just stories,” Kup replied softly, locking gazes with Jazz. “I was there when Lord Protector Bastion fell. You sure you want to hear that one, lad?”

Jazz nodded. “Seems like everyone needs a refresher course.”

“All right.” Kup looked back down at the rifle and began cleaning it again. “I wasn’t long into my final frame-set when Adamantine became Prime, and his Lord Protector rose with him. My first post was in Iacon as part of the guard and I thought that nothing could get better than that...”

-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-

_Iacon, 7,500 solar cycles earlier_

Kup stood behind the Ruling Seat--a fancy name for a throne if he’d ever heard one--while Adamantine raged. He’d learned quickly to stay out of the Prime’s visual range when he was taken by one of these moods, lest he lose a limb or two, and to simply let Adamantine vent himself on the surrounding environment.

Today, the casualties included the Protector’s Seat, a pair of cleaning drones, one table and the sensor array from the shoulder of a scientist who had moved too slowly out of the hall. They would likely mount, as the Prime’s rage didn’t seem blunted at all and there was still a great deal of furniture and ornamentation left in the room.

“Where is the Lord Protector?!” Adamantine picked up a delicate crystal goblet from a serving table and flung it at the door. It shattered with a mournful sound, dropping to the floor in shards that the drones would be cleaning for several rotational cycles. “How is it, that he escapes these tiresome meetings and leaves these stinking wretches to me?! How?! HOW DARE HE!!!!”

Kup muted his vocalizer on a sarcastic retort and ducked down behind the Ruling Seat as another goblet flew through the air. Reminding the Prime of Lord Bastion’s responsibilities to Cybertron’s defense forces would do him no favors, and possibly quite a bit of harm.

The singular goblet was followed in rapid succession by the other pieces in the serving set, and the young guard was splattered with coolant by the time Adamantine's attention turned to another part of the room. Silently, he was grateful that it was only coolant.

"You!" Something hard clattered off metal plating and the other bodyguard for their shift yelped in pain. " _Find_ my _worthless_ Lord Protector before I add you to this room's decorations!"

"Yes, my Prime!" The other guard scurried out of the room, more afraid of Adamantine's wrath than the punishment for deserting his post.

Kup didn't blame him. Given the chance, he would have run too.

-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-

Kup waited through the long hours of the Prime’s rage and a frantic shift change, but the other guard never returned. In the barracks, rumors started quickly. The other guard was accused of desertion, most popularly, some speculated that it was suicide and some accused the Prime of murder. Kup knew the last was untrue, as he had been with the Prime the entire time after the other guard left, but he wasn’t sure about the first two theories.

After all, Adamantine’s rages had made him consider deserting more than once.

Just to be certain, a pair of guards was sent to Lord Bastion’s quarters to be certain the guard had not simply gotten caught up in assisting the Protector with an important task. If the guard, and Bastion, could be found then they had a chance at finally soothing the Prime.

Kup went into recharge, hoping that by his next duty shift the normal order would be restored.

-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-

The Guardsmech woke to an apprehensively silent barracks. The recharge docks that should have held the two mechs who had gone to Bastion’s quarters were empty, and the few other Guardsmechs in the room were casting nervous glances between themselves. The relatively lightsparked gossip of the night before was gone, replaced with something that was beginning to look like real fear.

One mech deserting was relatively normal, three from the same unit in two solar cycles was almost impossible to explain.

“Kup.” Hammerstrike, the squad leader, stepped into the doorway, frowning. “The Lord Prime sent down orders for you. He’s tapped you to go check the Lord Protector’s quarters this time.”

The problem with having gotten so good at surviving Adamantine Prime’s fits of rage was that the mech had actually started to _trust_ him. Kup wished he didn’t, and his squad leader didn’t look any happier.

“Yes, sir,” Kup replied resignedly.

“Take someone one with you,” Hammerstrike told him. “Someone with heavy weapon mods like that hatchling Blitzwing.”

Blitzwing was hardly a hatchling, but he was the youngest mech in their unit, and would be a very good choice if he needed firepower. Kup was good with hand to hand and ranged weapons, but his frame was far too light for the really heavy weaponry. “Yes, sir.”

“Good mech.” The squad leader nodded sharply. “And Kup, come back alive.”

“We will, sir.” 

-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-

“I don’t like this.” Blitzwing fidgeted with his cannons, activating and deactivating the weapons repeatedly in the sort of nervous habit that should have been trained out of him before he was advanced into the ranks of the Elite Guard. But he was young, and probably just as scared as Kup, so the elder mech could forgive him.

“I don’t like it either.” Kup carefully input the override key he had been given for Lord Bastion’s door.

“The Prime should come himself, if he’s so worried.” Another cycle of the young mech’s weapons as they waited for the code to unlock the doors.

“And then we might need and new Protector _and_ a new Prime.” It was treason to suggest that Blitzwing might be right and they should just let their unstable Prime get caught up in whatever had happened to Bastion.

“Might be better for us if we did.”

The elder mech refused to agree. Not out loud, at any rate. “You shouldn’t say things like that where security can hear you. I’ve seen mechs executed for that.”

Blitzwing clamped his lip plates closed with an audible screech. The door lock finally beeped, preventing any other conversation. The Lord Protector’s door slid open, revealing a darken room.

Blitzwing powered up his canons and left them active. Then he shouldered his way in front of Kup and stepped inside. The elder mech followed, not waiting for the other to give an all-clear; Adamantine had ordered _him_ to investigate, after all.

“Lights,” Kup called out, hoping the computers were still properly connected. It would be much more difficult to see anything if they were forced to use their onboard lights.

Obediently, the computer activated the lighting system.

Blitzwing cried out in horror.

The corpse on the floor stared up at the ceiling with blank optics.

Kup knelt down next to the body and inspected it with a frown. “This is Steelspark, the bodyguard I shared last shift with.”

“What happened to him?” Blitzwing split his attention between the mangled body and the rest of the small entry chamber.

The elder mech traced some of the damage to his former partner’s plating with careful fingers. The edges were ragged, but all of a fairly even size and covering most of his body. That damage was relatively superficial, though; Steelspark had been killed when his abdominal plates had been ripped open and his energon pump torn out. When Kup looked up, he could see pieces of the pump scattered around the room, many with the same damage patterns as the dead mech.

“I don’t know.” Kup stood and stepped around Steelspark’s body. “But we need to keep looking, to be sure the same hasn’t happened to Lord Bastion.”

“Right.” Blitzwing clearly didn’t want to go, but he knew his duty to Prime and Protector. Slowly, he advanced toward the secondary chamber, Bastion’s private suite.

The lights came on in the private suite as Blitzwing stepped inside. He paused to look around, the cried out in surprise as a figure lunged at him from the side. The young mech staggered backward quickly, almost tripping over Kup in his hurry to get away.

“Blitzwing, what’s happening?!” Kup shoved his way around the larger mech, then froze at the sight that greeted him.

Shambling through the door, were three empties. Their optics were dull and unseeing, their mouths slack and their plating dulled to a grey parody of the colors any of them had sported in life. Most horrifying was the way their chest plates were peeled back, revealing clearly empty spark chambers. 

There was no reasonable way they could be moving, but the empties were taking slow, measured steps toward them. 

Blitzwing continued backing away, cannon raised. He hadn’t fired, but that was probably one a matter of time. “What are they!?”

“Empties,” Kup replied, his usually confident voice shaky with shock. “The living dead. I never believed…”

The lead empty lunged and Blitzwing fired, blasting the animated corpse back into Bastion’s private chambers. “They look real enough to me! Let’s get out of here!”

Blitzwing fired twice more, blasting the other two empties back into the secondary chamber. The three empties groaned, somehow still active. Kup and Blitzwing turned and ran, not giving the empties time to regroup and attack again. The empties pulled themselves back up and followed.

The younger mech leaped over Steelspark’s body as they ran back through the entry room, but Kup was not so lucky. He tripped over one of the dead mech’s hands and stumbled. He didn’t fall, but he was slowed down enough that one of the empties reached out and grabbed his arm.

Kup pulled frantically, trying to free himself and still move forward. The empty’s grip was strong, and the dead mech refused to give up his catch. The elder Guardsmech screamed as the empty pulled his hand into its mouth and bit down.

Blitzwing turned back as Kup screamed and raised his canon again. He fired at the empty that had bitten Kup, sending it flying. The elder mech screamed again as his arm was pulled apart at the elbow joint, the relatively fragile gears and cables giving up when the empty _still_ wouldn’t let go. The other two empties surged forward, enticed by the smell of freshly spilled energon.

Kup stumbled toward the door, pain and fear lacing each step. The old stories said a mech would become an empty just by being bitten. Was that what had happened to Lord Bastion?

The younger Guardsmech dragged the elder through the door and into the hallway as Kup’s fear threatened to lock his processor down. Then Blitzwing palmed the door lock, forcing the portal to close immediately. There were two muffled thumps against the unyielding metal as the door locked into place. Blitzwing set quarantine protocols on the door, then leaned against the wall.

As they both trembled with fear and exhaustion, Kup was hit with a frightening realization. The empties had been mechs he had known--the two guards sent before him and one of the scientists from the weapons division.

“Well,” Blitzwing said darkly. “Now we know what happened to the others. Come on. Let’s get you to medical.”

As the younger mech led him away, Kup couldn’t keep his processor off the fears plaguing it. If he thought empties had frightened him in his youth, they were terrifying in person.

-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-

The Prime’s optic shutters narrowed dangerously as the medic carefully pieced Kup’s arm back together. “Repeat that.”

“Just like he said, Prime,” Blitzwing broke in. “We got there, and Steelspark was dead and the other guards had been turned to empties. No sign of the Lord Protector anywhere.”

“There was also a scientist,” Kup added. “Volt, from weapons development. Volt, Glassjaw and Pulse were all empties, and I think they… ate Steelspark.”

“Empties.” Adamantine’s frown turned into an angry scowl. “How are there _empties_ in my palace?!”

“We don’t know sir.” Kup looked down at the medbay floor.

“Trying not to be eaten seemed more important at the time, sir.” Blitzwing stepped protectively in front of Kup and the medic.

“Then _find out_.” The Prime stepped forward so that he was standing toe to toe with the large Guardsmech and staring into his optics. “Or _you_ will be the next feast the empties have.”

“Yes, _sir_.” Blitzwing’s tone was as threatening as Adamantine’s.

-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-

Various members of Kup’s squad visited as he recovered in the medbay. His medic had placed him on leave until the new arm integrated. He had little to do while he waited and hearing their gossip gave him something to process, even if the news wasn’t good.

“And Blitzwing found two more empties today. That puts the total up at seven, and these weren’t safely contained.” Hammerstrike made a frustrated noise. “No one can figure out how they’re getting in. security has increased threefold, and they’re still coming in somehow.”

“Maybe,” Kup hesitated a moment before advancing the theory. “Maybe we can’t find a source, because they aren’t coming from the outside.”

Hammerstrike looked up sharply. “What?!”

“Maybe be can’t find the source, because we aren’t looking in the right place. Maybe the source is already insdie the palace.”

“That’s a horrifying idea.” the squad leader shuddered. “Do you have any proof to back it up?”

“No, but we also don’t know what causes empties in the first place. One idea is as good as another right now, don’t you think?” kup flexed the fingrs on his new hand, wishing he wasn’t confined to the medical berth. “Has anyone put down the three in Lord Bastion’s quarters yet?”

“No.” Hammerstrike gave a short, humorous laugh. “Shockwave wants to run tests on them. Says he has a theory about them, but that’s all he’ll say.”

“Shockwave is one cold mech. I’d feel sorry for the empties, if they weren’t dead already. Think he‘ll come up with anything?”

“Who knows. Like you said, one idea is as good as another right now.”

-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-

Kup was back on duty for roughly a joor when blitzwing came barreling into the security room. The elder mech barely glanced away from the monitors, scouring the halls for signs of empties or a sighting of their missing Lord Protector--until the younger grabbed him by the shoulder and spun him around.

“Kup, we found him!”

“Found who?” kup shrugged the larger mech’s hand off his shoulder. “Bastion?”

“yes, Bastion! Hammerstrike has him pinned down in the training room and needs backup.” blitzwing wrapped his hand around kup’s shoulder again and tugged him toward the door. “come on! Your relief is on his way. I kenw you’d want to be there to bring him in.”

“bring him in.” Kup frowned. Treating him as if he were a traitor, without having even heard Bastion’s side of the story. “yeah, I want to be there all right. If only to make sure no one slags him before we have some answers.”

-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-

They arrived in the training room to utter chaos. One mech was down, chest plates peeled back like the empties they kept finding, and Hammerstrike and another mech were firing weapons on Lord Bastion as the Protector tried to flee. The training room had only one entrance and no windows, however, so the large emch wasn’t getting out except through the small squad of Elite Guards.

“Please!” Bastion shielded his face with his hands. “You don’t understand! I have to feed!”

“What does he mean, feed?” KUp asked drawing his weapon but holding his fire.

“We caught him with his face buried in the rookie’s spark, just sucking it out like it was energon.” Hammerstrike increased the charge on his weapon and continued to fire.

“I don’t mean to hurt them, please!” The Lord Protector’s cries were pitiful, soundign almost confused.

Kup frowned and held up a hand to keep Blizwing from firing on the cringing mech. It was noisy enough in here without those cannons. He had never heard Bastion sound so weak or pitiful in all the time he had served as Adamantine’s personal guard.

“What happened to you, sir?” He called out over the laser fire.

Silence decended as Hammerstriek and the other guard stopped firing. The squad leader looked at kup in disbelief. Bastion lowered his hands and stared at him with gratitude.

Kup tried not to be unsettled by optics that were a soft violet now, rather than the fierce red of the warrior castes. “what happened?”

“A mech, in Praxus.” the Protector looked to the floor in shame. “It was nothing, a simple dalliance to pass the time, but he was not so innocent as he seemed. He poisoned me and left me for dead in his rooms. When I woke, I was… this monster. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I don’t mean to take their lives from them.”

For a moment, kup felt sorrow for how far the Protector had fallen. “Sir, you have to stop. You have to come back with us.”

“Oh, Kup. Ever the diplomatic one.” Bastion gave him a sad smile. “That’s why Adamantine likes you so much, you know. You know just the right words to soothe everything. Everything but this.”

No one was truly prepared when the Lord Protector leaped at the teal mech. No mech alive should have been able to jump such a distance, but that didn’t hinder Bastion. He landed on Kup’s chest, baring him to the ground.

“I have to feed,” The Protector continued. “I have to devour sparks to live, and I do not wish to die yet.”

“Shoot him!” Kup screamed as Bastion’s claws began digging into his chest plating. “Shoot him!”

“If we shoot, we’ll hit you!” Blitzwing replied.

“SHOOT HIM!!!” Kup was frantic now, trying desperately to pry the Lord Protector’s claws out of his plating. 

Bastion gave him a mocking smile, then ripped his chest plates apart. Kup’s screams turned to pain and he thrashed wildly, trying to dislodge the heavier body. The Protector only chuckled, then burried his face in Kup’s spark.

He was downed in euphoria as he felt something peirce his spark and then the teal mech felt light, so light, as he felt the pull of energy away from his spark. He had the idle thought that this wouldn’t be a bad way to die, before his processor was swamped in pure sensation.

-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-

_The Crystal Twoers, Present Day_

“So… what happened?” the youngest mech asked. “I mean, you’re not dead and you’re not an empty.”

“Blitzwing shot him off me,” Kup replied, massaging the elbow joint on the arm he’d lost to the empty. It was a nevous habit that should have been trained out of him long ago, but like Blitzwings cannons, it was overlooked because it didn’t affect his performance in combat. “I don’t remember anything after he dug his feeders into me, but Hammerstrike said it was one pit of a precision shot.”

“What about Bastion?” The mech who had initially requested the story asked.

“No one knows. In all the pyrotechnics after Blitz unloaded into him, Bastion ran. We never found more empites in the palace again, but we were never sure he’d left it, either. S’why the next Prime and Protector lived in the Celestial Temple. None of us knew if they were safe in the palace.”

“What about you? What happens when you die?” the youngest mech again. He reminded Kup so much of himself at that age.

Kup shrugged his shoulder dismissively. “I’ll be dead. Remember the stories, lad. Empties only surface if the Spark Eater gets everything.”

“And if he does come back an empty,” Jazz added, “I’ll make sure he’s not a threat for long.”

“How come Bastion was so hungry?” Another mech, not one who’d asked for a story but one who had certainly been interested once Kup started talking.

“I don’t know.” the eldest mech shook his head and began reassembling the rifle he’d cleaned during the course of his tale. “The legends tell a lot about Spark Eaters but not everything. Could be that it’s just something that happens when a Spark Eater is born. Could have just been an extra long feeding cycle.”

“Do you think he’s still out there?” the youngest again, finally looking appropriately nervous.

“Yes,” Kup replied. “I do.”

“So do I,” Jazz turned his gaze on the mechs under his command. “Sometimes stories are just stories, but it’s no lie that the Decepticons have Spark Eaters.”

A hush fell over the bunker, broken only by the soft click of rifle parts sliding back together.


End file.
